LG&E, KU Sale Wins Tentative Approval

The Kentucky Public Service Commission has tentatively approved the purchase of Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities by Pennsylvania-based PPL Corp.

The PSC today announced approval of a settlement involving a number of groups that intervened in the case.

PPL has agreed not to raise base utility rates before the end of 2012. The company earlier pledged to keep LG&E and KU headquarters in place for at least 15 years.

PPL announced in April that it had reached an agreement to purchase the utilities from E.ON U.S. for $7.6 billion. Louisville and state officials made a bid for public ownership of the companies but could not come to final terms.

“These documents demonstrate that a sweeping array of basic consumer and environmental safeguards at all levels of government here in the United States are being placed on a chopping block in a closed, secretive venue,” said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The national consumer group Public Citizen joined civil society groups around the globe today in a coordinated release of secret negotiating documents that have been leaked from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) service-sector negotiations. The documents expose the threat that the closed-door “GATS 2000” talks pose to essential public services upon which people worldwide rely daily.

The documents reveal the sweeping scope of issues now on the negotiating table. The issues include:

*privatization and deregulation of public energy and water utilities, postal services,
*higher education and alcohol distribution systems;
*the right for foreign firms to obtain U.S. government small-business loans;
*and extreme deregulation of private-sector service industries such as insurance, banking, mutual funds and securities.

“The good news is that this leak means the end to the Bush administration’s attempts to dodge Congress and the public by saying that there’s nothing going on at these WTO negotiations,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

“The bad news is that everything from your town’s municipal drinking water to the local electricity utility to the U.S. postman are headed for sale on some Geneva ‘trade’ negotiating table, and the public and our elected officials at every level have been kept in the dark.”

Many of the services listed in the leaked documents are regulated in the U.S. at the local or state level, yet state and municipal officials are excluded from these closed-door negotiations.

The leaked documents are European Union (EU) demands on other countries to privatize public services and deregulate service sectors as part of the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

The documents, which many describe as the “smoking gun” evidence after months of speculation and concern about the secretive GATS talks, have prompted civil society groups worldwide to call for a moratorium on talks and a public process involving state and local officials. All WTO member nations, including the U.S., are expected to respond to the European demands within weeks, starting March 31, 2003. Europe’s requests of the U.S. are available at http://www.tradewatch.org.

Europe’s complete requests to more than 100 WTO member nations are being released today by the Polaris Institute of Canada at http://www.polarisinstitute.org.

“These documents demonstrate that a sweeping array of basic consumer and environmental safeguards at all levels of government here in the United States are being placed on a chopping block in a closed, secretive venue,” said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.